Or at least he used handloads. I watched an old episode of "Have Gun - Will Travel" yesterday afternoon. It started in Paladin's San Francisco hotel room. There was a guy there, seated at a table reloading ammunition for Paladin (but the caliber wasn't stated). Paladin insisted on using exactly 16.9 grains of smokeless powder (type unknown) and a custom-made 225 grain bullet. And only Berdan primers could be used (although he pronounced "Berdan" strangely). No black powder factory ammunition for Paladin.

I had always thought the show was set back in the days before smokeless powder, which wasn't widely available in the USA until the mid-1890s, although the Europeans were using it a little earlier.

I think Have Gun, Will Travel played fast and loose with historical accuracy, like most TV shows, then and now. IIRC, his side arm, which looked like a stock 7.5" Colt SAA was supposed to be custom-made in England. Perhaps under some kind of license agreement with Colt?

That was the Paladin persona. He was a nobleman. He understood and appreciated all the finer things in life: art, literature, fine wine, sophisticated women, ... He didn't just buy his suits off the rack, why wouldn't he use custom made ammunition? I'm surprised his horse wasn't imported from England, with a bloodline that went back to King Arthur's steed.

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You're shy a few manners.

Paladin, in my opinion, was the offshoot of a genre of TV shows that I call Heroes-Disguised-As-Ordinary-People...a genre of shows (and movies) that flourishes to this day.

You could take it a step further by comparing him to earlier heroes like Superman and Batman...one disguised as a nerd (Clark Kent), the other as a millionaire (Bruce Wayne).

It's an old story line..."there are supermen among us". We love the concept, because it's easy to imagine ourselves as the nebbish guy hiding heroic qualities and coming to the rescue of whoever and whatever needs rescuing.

Richard Boone was not the typical handsome six-foot-six hero with chiseled features. I think Have Gun, Will Travel was a very well done series, and it remains one of my all time favorites.

The Lone Ranger cast and loaded his own 'Silver Bullets'.

*Ya know that mask'd man only shot to wound,
guess he didn't want to cause any bad men lead poisoning.

.

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"IN GOD WE TRUST"

It was both a tv show and a adio show.

The radio opening line, for each episode, was, "San Francisco, 1875. The Carlton Hotel, headquarters of the man called ... Paladin".

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I always take precautions

Over a Campfire yet. Good Trick

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Sceva
OGCA SWCA NRA

If I remember correctly, I think there's a scene in Mel Gibson's The Patriot of bullets being cast using a campfire's heat to melt the lead.

I've heard in the old west, there were a mix of people like nowhere else. On the other side of the camp fire might be anybody from a displaced English nobleman, to a freed slave, and every thing in between. Men where judged by the work they did. Not by their color, or nationality, or relatives.

Makes sense people reloaded back then.

Buffalo hunters shot reloads all of the time.

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Eccentric old coot

Interestingly, I think it was the only radio show that was a TV show first. Usually it was the other way around.

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You're shy a few manners.

Watchdog: Lead melts at 621F, easily achievable over a campfire. Silver melts at 1721F, not achievable over a campfire.

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Tom
1560

A few thoughts...

1) the tong style hand reloading tool has been around a long time - since the dawn of metallic cartridges and were often included as part of a package with black powder cartridge rifles.

Buffalo hunters for example, insisted on them as they'd go into the field with a few hundred store bought cartridges, along with 25 pound kegs of black powder and a commensurate amount of lead to cast bullets and then reload their own ammunition.

At black powder pressures, with either straight wall or neck sized bottle neck cases, case life is essentially indefinite. I've been using the same batch of 45-70 cases in my reloads for over 20 years now. A wash in hot soapy water and a good drying between loads is all that is needed to keep them perfectly functional.

2) Initially the bullet mold and tong style loading tools were separate, until 1884 when Ideal included the mold on the other side of the hinge on their tong tool. With this tool, the only other things you needed were:
- a powder dipper
- a container to melt your lead in; and
- a dipper to pour the lead into the mold.

A powder dipper could usually be made by the shooter, if he had access to a file, by using a cartridge case trimmed to the length to give the required charge.

Sometimes that isn't even needed. I recall reading about one Alaska native who had hunted with one of the big gun writers at the time (1950s?) who measured the powder for his .30-30 by filling the case and scraping it off flush with the case mouth and then seating the bullet. It worked fine with that particular powder and bullet weight.

Ideal stopped putting the mold on the tool around 1900. This made sense as it was around the same time that jacketed bullet hand loading became more common.

These early tools did not have interchangeable dies and were one caliber only affairs - and with the built in bullet mold they were one bullet only affairs as well. But they were very compact and it was easy to carry a set in a saddle bag along with powder, lead, and primers, which took up less weight and space as components than a comparable quantity of loaded ammunition.

In 1947 Lyman started producing their 310 tong tool, which used different shell holders and dies, which meant a particular set of tong tools could handle a whole class of cartridges - although you still needed small and large sized tools to cover both rifle and pistol cartridges.

About 1957 Lyman switched to aluminum handles to reduce the weight, but the design has otherwise remained unchanged, and if you buy one today, you can essentially be hand loading in the same manner that shooters did in the late 1800s.

If you don't want to invest in a tong tool that requires special dies (the diameter and thread size is smaller for the Lyman 310), you can get a Lee hand press for under $35, use your regular dies and accomplish the same thing, in an almost as portable package. It's actually handy for load development at the range. For larger rifle calibers, you'll need a set of neck sizing dies to keep the manual effort to a reasonable limit.

3) Pure silver has a melting temperature of 1,761 degrees F, and a campfire isn't going to cut it. Silver coins are alloyed a bit and will melt at around 1,650 degrees, but even that is way beyond campfire range where the heat tops out at around 1500 degrees F.

Now...if you construct the fire pit in a manner that creates a draft up through the fire, then you can increase the heat significantly. This is most simply done by digging a side tunnel under and then up into the base of the fire pit - but I've never seen the Lone Ranger actually do this. You could also use a bellows to pump air into the fire, but again I've never seen Tonto running the bellows for the Lone Ranger either. It makes the silver bullet thing a bit hard to swallow, even if you can get past the reduced weight and sectional density that would have made it far less effective than lead, particularly at black powder pressures.

If you construct a coal fired forge, then you can get up around 3,500 degrees F and make your own firearm if you want to go fully off the grid.

4) Lead however is reasonably easily melted over a run of the mill campfire, particularly pure lead which melts at 621 degrees, and pure tin melts at just 450 degrees F so it's not hard to get a harder alloy. (Your household "tin foil" is actually aluminum and melts at 1,220 degrees F). Pure antimony melts at 1167 degrees F, so it's the biggest challenge over a camp fire but still do-able under ideal conditions.

5) Collodin was pretty much the first viable smokeless powder for sporting arms. It dates back to 1871, but was only produced until 1875, when the Austrian government closed the factory because it felt powder production was something that should only be done by the government. Still, while it's a real stretch, it's not out of the realm of possibility that it could have been specified in 1875 by Paladin. I have no idea what a proper charge would be. 16.9 grs is as good a guess as any, particularly for Hollywood purposes.

Poudre B, short for Powder Blanche, which translates as white powder, was the next practical powder and it didn't come along until 1884.

The thought struck me that the guy reloading cartridges for Paladin may also have been making his own smokeless powder just for Paladin's use. He said something to Paladin about "changing the ratio of carbon to nitocellulose" (which I can't imagine the meaning of), but Paladin wouldn't hear of doing that. Anything is possible on TV.

The first smokeless powder manufacture in the USA (at Carney's Point, NJ) was by du Pont, and that began about 1893. In 1889 du Pont sent some of their people to Europe, at the U. S. Army's insistence, to find out what was going on with smokeless powder technology there. They did purchase the patent rights from a Belgian company to manufacture smokeless powder in the USA. However, the Belgian process proved so unsatisfactory that du Pont ended up developing their own manufacturing processes in-house from scratch. For those interested in such historical information, I refer you to a book titled "Du Pont - One Hundred and Forty Years" by William S. Dutton (Scribner, 1951). It's heavy but interesting reading about the birth and development of the American powder and explosives industry. Du Pont operated much like Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company. They just bought out or financially destroyed all their competitors.

In the first episode, Paladin says of his revolver, "Its trigger responds to a pressure of one ounce."

16.9 grains of black powder combined with a 225gr bullet would be about right for the 45 Schofield.


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I still watch episodes of Paladin on Youtube...
<a href="https://imgur.com/U0DPnkw"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/U0DPnkw.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

I have the entire Paladin set standing by for this winter's hibernation...

Many years ago, one of the gun mags (Gun World?) did an article on casting, loading, and shooting the vaunted silver bullets. It was hilariously tongue in cheek and frankly a colossal failure. One of their biggest expenses was in wining and dining an attractive young lady who was allegedly a consulting metallurgist. At least that's what they claimed on the expense account.

I believe that their quest for total authenticity extended to having the requisite mask and white horse as well.

All in the interest of science.

This is the episode - "Cream of the Jest"

both in magazines and on the net about Have Gun, Will Travel.

The revolver he used was not a Colt, but a "Hamilton" custom made for him in 45 caliber.

The smokeless powder he used was his own formula and was made for him secretly by a chemist friend.

This stuff was long ago and I don't remember the sources but I remember reading them. I guess they came from the show's "bible"

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The Last Standing Knight

Yes, it was Gun World that had the silver bullet article. The bottom line is, silver s not a suitable bullet material.

I cast tons (literally) of scrap lead into ingots using a cast iron kettle over a camp fire. That method allows the breeze to sweep away fumes you do not want to inhale and gets rid of crud that might clog a bottom pour electric lead pot. Cup cake pans and a couple of iron pans that were made to form pastries that I never learned the name of worked for bullet molds.

By the way, in a couple of weeks will I need silver bullets for vampires or wear-wolfs? I'd hate waste good silver on a monster that did not require it.

If you have ever seen Nevada Smith, the character played by Brian Keith that befriends Steve McQueen is a traveling gun salesman and is shown reloading handgun shells in one scene. I didn't watch Have Gun Will Travel as a kid but have been watching it on one of those channels that shows old westerns on weekends and like it a lot.

My favorite. Had not seen it in 50 yrs. At the cabin, I only get the broadcast channels and I get Paladin at 8:00am every morning .... 2 episodes.

Charlie

Lone Ranger, Go Away

That's the Gun World Silver Bullet article.

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I always take precautions

The guns that were actually used for the series...never mind what Paladin may have called them or how he described them...were:

1. A Single Action Cavalry Model with 7.5-inch barrel.




2. Single Action Artillery Model with 5.5-inch barrel


3. Remington 1866 Derringer, although Paladin's wasn't as ornate as the one shown here, but it does appear to be engraved. I seem to remember Paladin loading or reloading the derringer with the same ammo as on his gunbelt, but I think the 1866 Derringer was a .41 rimfire.




4. A Winchester 1892 Saddle Ring Carbine.


Paladin's gun leather was made by (no surprise here) Arvo Ojala.

It'd be interesting to know who owns the gun and rig now. I wonder if the same guy's family still has the gun shown here? Note in the photo below, the gun is chambered in .44-40, made in 1910...not .45 Colt! In the sixties, Hollywood had not really gone over to using a lot of prop guns in its television series and films. There were plenty of the real things floating around at low prices, and the studios' prop warehouses were full of them. They would make our collective mouths water in 2017. Paladin's business card shown in the display is autographed on the reverse by Richard Boone.

I just saw some of those items at the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum this afternoon.

There is probably nothing more forged than the Paladin business card. At the time the show was popular, almost everyone with access to a printing press was making them. There are authenticated examples signed by Richard Boone as he did give them out. I have seen some listed on eBay.

I remember some thinking that Paladin's first name was "Wire" because that's what it said on the card.

A couple of Colt corrections...

First, Cavalry is the term you want: horse soldiers. "Calvary" was the place where Christ was crucified.

Second, I don't think Artillery troops alone ever got shorter Colts. Those with 5.5 inch barrels in govt. service were shortened and sent to the Philippines in the early 1900's before the .45 auto and the M-1909 .45 revolver appeared. The reason was poor stopping power of the .38 Long Colt cartridge.

Also, I think I recall Paladin sometimes using a Colt derringer. I believe this was the Third Model.

BTW, arms actually made by Henry Deringer's firm are styled as Deringers. Other small pistols of the general type are just derringers. Two ''r'' s and no capital "D".

I'm surprised that Paladin's .44 was made in 1910. I always thought those movie and TV show guns were newer, after Colt resumed production of Model P in the mid 1950's.

I wonder if any of those TV stars using Colt SAA's really liked guns and kept those they used on shows or bought guns like them. Some, like James Garner on, "Maverick" were anti-gun, I believe.

Ah, my occasional mild dyslexia rears its ugly head again after years of absence. I'll do an edit and fix that. Thank you so much for correcting me. Did I spell "dyslexia" right?

I don't know anything about that. I was quoting from a data source that lists details about the guns used in the series. I didn't delve into Colt history at all.

Regarding all this other stuff, including spelling and capitalization, I'm once more quoting/copying from a data source (The Internet Movie Firearms Database). The spelling, photographs, firearms information, and formatting are theirs, not mine.

That isn't a Colt Third Model derringer in the photos. This is a Third Model.

By the time I was 12, I knew what a Colt Third Model derringer looked like. Thanks for the photo of this fancy one.

As for the Remington double barreled derringer seen in the series, I had lunch with Rex Applegate in San Antonio in 1979. He mentioned that the .41 Short RF from a Remington derringer wouldn't penetrate all the way into a phone pole in his tests. He didn't like it much and didn't recommend it to his OSS operatives. It can also fire if dropped on the hammer.

But in Old West days, it had its uses and probably penetrated in flesh better than in wood. Jeff Cooper made the excellent point that the bullet often caused infection, so even a non-lethal hit from one might eventually kill. This was widely known, so a .41 derringer made an excellent threat item. Thus, displaying one might cause an enemy to leave without having to be shot.

It's Hollyweird. Paladin was a very distinct character. A clever marketing ploy.
Steve McQueen with his Mare's Leg, Chuck Connors with his rifle, Hugh O'Brian carrying a Buntline Special. Richard Widmark carrying a Nock Volley Gun in "The Alamo" (1960). Whoever thought that up had obviously never fired one.

Werewolves can now sleep easier.